Army Seeks Short-Term Payoff From Future Combat Systems

National Defense Magazine ^ | December 2003 | Sandra I. Erwin

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Free Republic Treadhead Ping

archy; Gringo1; Matthew James; Fred Mertz; Squantos; colorado tanker; The Shrew; SLB; Darkesheare; BCR #226; Imacatfish

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Ranger]

Right now 4000 up armored humvees are immediately needed in Iraq. The army cannot produce 3500 of them in the next 18 months. This is ridiculous given the significant number of casualties currently inflicted on the occupants of unarmored humvees in Iraq today. Priority needs to be focused there. Last month 3076 commercial hummers were produced by GM alone. This is a clear indication to me that no effort has been made to put uparmored humvee production into a war production modality. Stop screwing around and get those damned uparmed humvees into Iraq!

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Infantry Ping List

We have a Stryker Brigade Combat Team Tactical Studies Group (CHAIRBORNE) and a Free Republic Treadhead Ping List. Freepers who are interested in Strykers and tanks alert each other to good threads and generate discussion. There have already been several posts in which serving Freepers have asked for and received advice on how to solve some of the problems they are facing. Many of these problems have been dealt with before, on other battlefields, but the institutional memory has been lost.

A Free Republic Grunt Ping List could harness the collective wisdom of several hundred combat veterans, and help preserve the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures developed in previous conflicts that may still be effective today.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

This nation is not mobilized for war. The all volunteer war fighters are suffering because of that.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I have about 25 Freepers to invite on to the Infantry Ping List. Who do they need to Freepmail to be put on it?

[SLB]

Mobilize for war? As a whole this nation has chucked 9-11 into a paragraph in history books. We must never forget and forums like FR are the place to have the groundswell needed get started.

Why produce un-armored humvees for the military when we can produce a civilian version and get a re-sale of another in threee or four years. This is all about marketing. Can you imagine the uproar if we had tire rationing? How about gas rtioning? Anyone for a victory garden and not the type on HGTV!

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ARMORED WARFARE: Bulletproof HMMWV in Iraq

[HiJinx]

Gas Rationing? Oh No!!!!

From the article: told contractors that they “need to work fast.”

Do they never learn? The Army wants it fast, cheap, and good. They can only get two out of three...

Seriously, though...we're working right now to give 'em all 3. The company I work for does software. It's a bit easier to turn out a few thousand lines of code than it is to build an up-armored HMMWV, but...

[Cannoneer No. 4]

AM General Corp., South Bend, Ind., was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $39,571,065 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle expanded capacity vehicle chassis. Work will be performed in South Bend, Ind., and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2007. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on July 17, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-01-C-S001).

O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co., Fairfield, Ohio, was awarded on Nov. 4, 2003, a $35,675,000 modification to a firm-fixed-price contract for 500 M1114 up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles with gun shields. Work will be performed in Fairfield, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2005. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This was a sole-source contract initiated on April 10, 2000. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (DAAE07-00-C-S019).

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Short 4000. Getting 500 between now and 2007. What's wrong with this picture?

[SLB]

Contract (DAAE07-01-C-S001) comes to $79142.13 per vehicle. Contract (DAAE07-00-C-S019) comes to $71350.00 per vehicle. How much is a civlian version? Even the latter of the two is for less than 30 a month. Pretty low rate production if you ask me. We are NOT on a war footing in the country.

[sauropod]

Well, well, well. What goes around comes around.

I thought the LV100 was dead altogether.

OSD got their wish in cancelling Crusader and have been diddling in Army affairs for some time. As a result there has been a dearth of development activities in engine and vehicle development, hence we have older platforms that have been streched and streched.

Witness Paladin.

i used to work on a number of these programs in the past and all this emphasis on C4 and "network-centric warfare" (that nobody knows actually what it is) means that the US is living on borrowed time wrt its heavy and medium armor fleets.

Question: "United Defense LP, for example, recently unveiled a 20-ton armored vehicle equipped with a 120 mm gun that was fired at a shooting range in California, according the UDLP officials. The demonstrator—powered by a hybrid-electric engine—is a modified armored gun that originally was developed in the early 1990s for Army light forces and subsequently was cancelled to fund other programs.

Is this what used to be AGS?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

$102,581

[sauropod]

Truer words were never spoken. Also, with Rummy at the helm, it will never be mobilized.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Is this what used to be AGS?

Yes

[Cannoneer No. 4]

United Defense Unveils Thunderbolt 120mm Demonstrator

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ARMORED WARFARE: Thunderbolt is Looking for Work

November 21, 2003: Last September, American weapons manufacturer United Defense Industries demonstrated a new, cheaper and lighter self-propelled artillery piece to replace the cancelled Crusader system. A month later, they demonstrated the same 20 ton armored chassis with a 120mm gun (same as used on the M-1) in a tank turret (smaller than used in the M-1). The new system was called "Thunderbolt" and included an autoloader and an undisclosed number of rounds carried. The armor can only stop 30mm armor piercing shells in the front, and 14.5mm machine-gun bullets on the sides. Expensive composite armor was used to achieve this much protection. In other words, any tank in the world could knock out Thunderbolt with one shot. But the 120mm gun can also destroy any tank out there (except the M-1, from the front). United Defense Industries was quite proud of the fact that it only took them seven months to put all of this together (although a lot of work was shared with the self-propelled artillery project.) The big question is, if Thunderbolt were ordered into production, how long would that take? A "demonstration model" has not done any of the difficult and time consuming work to insure that the vehicle would stand up to field use. Another potential showstopper is the wear and tear the 120mm gun puts on the lighter (20 ton, versus 60 tons for the M-1) chassis. The stress and vibration problems can require major design changes (either a smaller weapon or a heavier chassis.) Then again, Thunderbolt is taking advantage of the fact that M-1s don't get hit much by large caliber guns in combat. Thunderbolts, being smaller, would probably get hit less. Thunderbolt also uses a novel electrical drive that allows for four hours of "silent operation" (moving just under electrical power.) This could be useful. But in Iraq, M-1s did get many hits (nearly all ineffective) by RPGs. Moreover, because the 120mm gun is a "one shot, one target destroyed" kind of weapon, you wouldn't have to fire many rounds in combat, so the smaller ammo capacity of the Thunderbolt would be less of a problem. But to train the crew, you have to fire that 120mm gun a lot. If you can't train the crew, might as well not take the vehicle into combat. Thus it is unclear exactly what Thunderbolt is trying to demonstrate.

[Kenny Bunk]

I am wondering if the Abrams could be re-engined with a modern diesel. The turbine is an incredible engine, and packaged with its gearing is a beautiful unit, but very very expensive.

Since the turbine's development, some fantastic things have happened with diesel tech, which might make a look at repowering with diesel a competitive option(?)Comments please.